Past Lives
by catswithbenefits
Summary: They've been together since the earth cooled (Modern, 1930's, 1890's, 1340's AU) Their three souls have intertwined in each life and every time destiny brings them together darker forces threaten to tear them apart
1. Chapter 1

A street light bursts above Eponine. She can see the glow of the sparks behind her closed eyes. With a shaky hand she brushes away her tears and stands. _It was just a kiss,_ she tells herself; the next street light explodes. _It probably didn't mean anything._ The lie she tell herself doesn't work; the closer she gets to each lamp the brighter it glows before exploding. Marius is in love with Cosette. This was an undeniable fact now. Eponine doesn't know how she could ever have fooled herself into thinking that Marius might have feelings for herself. No one even wanted to be friends with her, why would anyone be _in love_ with her. But tonight she'd seen Marius, her Marius, and Cosette in the corner booth of the restaurant holding hands, kissing. She tried to hold herself together until the end of her shift, but after starting the grill on fire, she had to excuse herself three hours early. She thinks of his shy hand on Cosette's knee, his beautiful dark fingers barely brushing her skin, the way he smiled into the kiss, practically laughing. It ties her stomach up in knots.

The street lights are flickering out now, rather than exploding. Eponine stops to catch her breath. She's hyperventilating, knowing that Marius has never, and will never care about her. Not the way he does for Cosette. No one will ever look at her the way Marius looks at Cosette, or kiss her and mean it the way he does. Or- Epnine looks down the street and sees that two whole blocks have gone dark. She needs to get her emotions in check.

In through the nose, out through the mouth, in through the nose. She stills her trembling hands and tries to put a stop to the crackling electricity in the air around her. If she's not careful it'll start to rain, the perfect end to a perfect night. Eponine kicks off her work shoes and stands on the tree lawn. The grass beneath her feet becomes brittle and brown. _He's just a boy,_ she tells herself. He's her friend and this doesn't change that. He never lied about caring for her, she just blew his apparent affections out of proportion. She thinks about all the times Marius had sat on her bed and talked about Cosette. How she thought he was doing it just to make her jealous. It makes the air around her head pop with energy. _You're being a child_ , Eponine scolds herself.

Each step she takes kills more grass, but at least the street lights have stopped going out. Walk and breathe, walk and breathe, that's all she can do. Marius deserves to have someone who isn't a freak of nature. He deserves to not have people constantly whispering that his girlfriend is a witch, egging his house and car, graffiting his driveway because they hate him by association. _He already gets enough shit for eating lunch with me._ No-dating the local witch would ruin him more than befriending her ever had.

Not for the first time, she imagined herself running away and starting over again. Alone. For good. But Marius. _Marius._ Even if he didn't love her the way that she loved him, she'd never be able to leave him.


	2. Chapter 2

Someone pulls a chair up to Eponine's desk first hour. The night before has completely drained her, so she doesn't offer him her standard angry glare; instead keeping her head down and feigning sleep in an attempt to dissuade him from pestering her.

"Do you want some coffee?" When Eponine doesn't respond, she can feel the desk move a bit with the weight of the boy putting his head on it too. "Eponine," he whispers.

"What."

"You doing okay?"

She lifts her head to see who's speaking to her. In the four years of hell she's spent attending this school no one besides Marius has ever asked that. It's the curly haired kid, Courfeyrac, the guy she sees Marius get lunch with when he isn't getting it with her. "I'm fine," she says, even though she knows she looks like shit. "How are you?" she asks it in a way that no one would mistake for actual interest.

"I'm good too! I was wondering if you wanted to get lunch with me today?"

Eponine almost puts her head back down, but he looks so eager. People only ask her for lunch because they A) lost a bet B) want to try to sleep with her C) want to save her soul for Jesus OR D) want her to hex someone "What do you want from me?" she asks. No use beating around the bush. His smile doesn't falter, but his eyes grow wary. Either B or D, then.

"Lunch?"

"Courfeyrac, you have a hundred friends. There's no reason for you to want lunch with me when you could sit with anyone you like. Just tell me what you want so I can say no."

He pouts, but his eyes are still bright. "Come on 'Ponine, don't be like that. It'll be me, you, Marius, and Cosette. It won't be weird at all!"

"I'm not worried about it being weird," she says, though the reminder that Cosette may become a daily addition to her lunchtime routine does feel weird, "I just-" Eponine isn't sure what she's just. Courfeyrac's smile fills in the chip on her shoulder that Marius dug out last night.

"You're just scared that I'm going to ruin your cool-girl persona? That you're going to fall in love with me?" Eponine smiles despite herself, making him grin even wider, and she knows he's broken her weak will. Mostly because it would be nice to have someone to distract her from Marius making goo-goo eyes at Cosette all hour, she tells herself. And it's as if Courfeyrac will be able to accomplish 'B' or 'D' with two other people sitting there. Even someone as outspoken as Courfeyrac wouldn't be so brash as to bring up those things in polite company.

"I'll tell you what. We can have lunch on one condition," she says.

"And what's that?"

"You give me half of whatever you packed for desert," she nods at his sack lunch on the floor.

"Not my mum's brownies! You thief!" She shrugs as if throwing away his offer for lunch, but he's already reaching for his bag. "Just this once, Thenardier. I know a brownie addict when I see one." He gives her the entire brownie and a wink before heading back to his seat. Eponine pockets it and watches him from the corner of her eye for the rest of the class, flipping the mystery of Courfeyrac around in her head. 'B' or 'D', sex or hex. She can't decide what kind of a person he is. Part of her wonders if he isn't just a nice guy trying to help her out of pity. Whatever the case is, she can't trust him.

* * *

"You don't really live in this direction, do you?" It comes off as more of an accusation than a question.

Courfeyrac had come to lunch as promised and deflected all of Cosette's questions from her. He was a knight in shining armor, really, but if she was being honest with herself, he was too good to be true. There had to be a catch, and as a catch, even a catch wrapped in kindness, he was overstaying his welcome by insisting on walking her home. He claimed to live just a few streets down from her, but just a few streets down meant the industrial park, and only stray dogs lived there.

"No," he says a little shyly, "but I've been wanting to talk to you for some time about this thing and I didn't know how to do it in front of Marius at lunch."

So here it goes. He's a 'B' guy. He totally wants me to blow him.

"There's this um... there's this girl-"

A 'D' guy! He wants me to hex someone! Unbelievable! I read him all wrong!

"I mean, you know what they say about you, right?" Courfeyrac rubs the back of his neck nervously and stares at the sidewalk. Everything about him says that he's afraid saying it aloud will offend Eponine which is incredible considering he's about to ask her to curse someone and you can't get more offensive than that.

"No, what do they say about me?" she says, making him work for his demand.

"You know, that you're a-" he gestures with his hand hoping that she can fill in the blanks.

"I'm a what?" Eponine stops walking and crosses her arms, insisting he make eye contact with her when he makes he asks if she'll do a little black hocus pocus on someone.

"A witch." Courfeyrac looks from the ground to Eponine's cold stare and back to the ground again. "I mean, you're not actually a witch, but you have magic, right? Or at least you've got I- I don't know-" he's stammering now and she almost feels bad for putting him on the spot. "Like you probably know a spell or two or some herbs that can influence someone a little, right?"

"That's crazy talk," she says, releasing him from her gaze and continuing her walk at a brisk pace so that he needs to jog to keep up. "Magic isn't real," she adds when he follows her for another half block.

"Look, I'm in love." Courfeyrac says. Eponine hesitates. Not a curse then. Maybe he's not all bad. "I know you don't have any reason to be interested in something as stupid as love, but I just want these feelings to go away." She turns around and sees he's stopped a few paces back, dejected, but actually looking at her this time. Something about him makes her stop. Sympathy? She isn't sure.

"What you're asking-" she's about to say "isn't possible, you fool," but the look on his face kills whatever bitter words are on her tongue. If she were capable of erasing her feelings for Marius, she would have done it by now. But her magic didn't work like that.

"Let's just say for one second that I am a witch," Eponine says slowly. "Why would you want me to get rid of your emotions? Girls are falling over themselves to get it you. I'm sure anyone you're 'in love' with would say yes if you just asked."

"She wouldn't." Courfeyrac sounds absolutely certain and crestfallen in those two words alone. It's enough for Eponine to know that this mystery girl is taken. Just like her Marius. If she wasn't such a sucker for lost puppies she would have kept walking and let him find his own way home without another word. But her bleeding heart couldn't leave behind another rejected soul, not in good conscience.

"Fuck it," she says to herself. "Ok. I'm not saying I'm a witch, but if I were a witch, I think I know a way that I could help you."

Courfeyrac practically skips to close the gap between them. "I can give you compensation, I've got a job, I-"

"No, I don't want your money." She would feel bad if she took it and the spell she was planning on using backfired.

"The blood of a virgin?" Courfeyrac asks half-jokingly, his voice cracking. Eponine can't help but laugh.

"No, this kind of magic takes time. I want you to keep me up with a steady supply of your mom's brownies while we work together."

"You fiend! I knew you would get addicted." As if prepared for this exact demand, he reaches into his backpack to fish out another brownie. "When do we do this? On a full moon?"

Eponine checks her phone for the time. 2:30. More than a couple hours until her parents come home. "How about now?"

"Now?"

Eponine nods, a tickle of regret licking her stomach. Courfeyrac seems nice enough but he could very well be one of the kids that throws eggs at her house. There's no way for her to know. Inviting him inside means inviting in the danger of being burned at the stake or whatever it is they do to witches these days. But with Marius gone... what does she have to lose? Her life is pretty much empty anyway. "Yeah, sure, why not?"

Courfeyrac offers to shoulder her backpack and she obliges. "So what do I call you? I mean what's the proper term? A sorcerer? A wizard?"

Eponine laughs bitingly, "Oh no, the kids at school got it one hundred percent right. I'm the witch bitch."


	3. Chapter 3

"Come over here, I need you to do something."

"What's this for?" Eponine turns to see what Courfeyrac is referring to. He's in her closet holding a broken mirror, checking his teeth in it.

"Ohmygod put that down right now!" she slams her candle down on the dresser and takes a stride over to him just before the mirror slips out of his hands and shatters entirely. She isn't sure if it's her emotional doing or if it's just because Courfeyrac is clumsy. She blames him regardless. "Way to go."

"I'll get you a new one!" He's on his knees trying to pick up the shards but she gestures for him to leave it alone.

"You can't. I made it. No one but me can look in it. It was ruined as soon as you picked it up anyways."

"Then I'll help you make a new one. Wait, you made a mirror? What does it do? Tell you if you're the fairest in the land?"

"Get out of my closet, Courfeyrac."

He leaves his shards to accept the candle she's holding out to him. "But seriously, what does it do? Why are you the only one allowed to look in it?" Eponine tilts his candle holding hand with her right until the wax is dripping into her left. She doesn't stop until there's a black pool filling her palm. "Why do you keep so many secrets?" She blows the candle out nods for him to set it down before taking his hand in her wax-filled one. She knows that even with the wax her hand is cold, but he doesn't mention it when the wind their fingers together. "We've been doing this for two weeks now; we're friends."

"Are we?" she looks up from their hands.

"Yeah of course, why wouldn't we be? I like you, I'm pretty sure you like me-you laugh at my jokes at lunch anyway, I mean-"

"Do you actually like me though?" Eponine scowls and looks back to their hands. "Because after all of this I'm sure you'll want to get back to your regular life. You're not going to bother me in math anymore or sit with me at lunch. This is a one time thing. Once your ties are cut from this girl, it's all over." Courfeyrac starts to say something but Eponine cuts him off again. "I know what people say about us. That I've bewitched you or something. That we're sleeping together and that once you sleep with a witch your mind becomes hers. That you asked Stacy to prom and she said no, so you went mental and your impulsive off the rails rebound is me. The sooner we finish up all of this, the sooner you get your life back." Eponine takes a lighter out and holds the flame close to the back of her palm.

"Woah, hey! Not cool!" Courfeyrac pulls their still entangled hands away from the flame.

"Do you want to do this or not? Don't be such a baby."

"I don't want you to burn yourself for _my_ sake!"

"Don't worry, you'll get a turn too." She brings the flame close to her hand again, but Courfeyrac is gripping her tight with apprehension. "You need to calm down or this isn't going to work. You'll ruin the wax mold." He loosens his grip a bit. She holds the lighter to her skin for five seconds, biting her cheeks while she does it to keep from cursing. "Now you."

Courfeyrac takes the lighter reluctantly. "What does this do?"

"It burns you."

"No, but magically. Why am I burning myself? You keep saying that you don't get something for nothing, but I don't understand what I'm giving here."

"Your flesh, your pain; we could have done it with a knife but this is less messy, and even though knives represent the fire spirits, I think actual fire works better."

Courfeyrac strikes the sparkwheel and swallows. "And this is going to work?"

"I don't know." Courfeyrac lets the flame die.

"What?"

"It's not my book," Eponine says defensively. "I didn't write the spell and I've never tried it before. Based on the ingredients and methods it should, but the last two spells we tried didn't work and they were from the same book." Courfeyrac starts to pull his hand away, but Eponine holds him tight. "I already burned myself, if the spell is real we can't leave it unfinished. And if it's real, we'll want to finish anyway."

Courfeyrac is trying to keep his breathing steady, but the sharp rise and fall of his chest betrays him. He raises the lighter to his hand but every time the flame licks his skin he flinches away.

"Look, I can't hold the lighter for you. You have to do that yourself. But if you do this, you can have _five_ questions that I'll answer. You can't leave the spell undone or it's going to hurt me a lot more than a burn."

He looks at her. "Do these spells hurt you?"

"Is that one of your five questions?" Eponine asks raising a brow.

Courfeyrac bites down hard on his lip and practically presses the lighter to the back of his hand. Eponine counts and when she reaches five he drops it to the ground and lets out a whine. She takes a red ribbon braided with blonde hair and wraps it around their hands quickly. The blonde hair is stolen from the girl Courfeyrac doesn't want to love anymore, how he got so much of it; Eponine doesn't want to know.

"Now picture me as the girl you like."

" _What?_ "

"Just do it!" Courfeyrac scrunches his eyes closed and hums a little bit. Eponine focuses on the wax inside their hands it heats up again and begins to trickle out of the hands and onto the ribbon and hair. She stops when there a black puddle on the floor and the ribbon is thoroughly covered. "Ok." Courfeyrac opens his eyes.

"Do you have any burn cream?"

Eponine shakes her head and unwinds the ribbon from their hands before letting go of him. "Part of the spell is the lingering pain. You have to wait for it to heal." She hands him the ribbon. "You need to wear this."

"Like on my neck?" Courfeyrac asks, looking warily at the wax-encrusted hair.

"On your neck, your wrist, your ankle, I don't care. But your hand needs to heal before it falls off."

"That's gross."

"Again, I didn't write the spellbook."

"Who _did_ write the spellbook?"

Eponine sits on her messy bed and flips the spellbook his way. "Is that one of your five questions?" He sits next to her and picks up the book. It's old, but more from use than age. It couldn't be more than a hundred.

"No. My first question is, why do you miss school the day after we finish each spell."

Eponine sighs as if the question is uninteresting. "Like I said, the spells hurt if we do them wrong. Ask me something better; I won't make that one count."

"How does it hurt? Is it like a headache? Cramps?"

"I can't explain it; you won't understand."

"Try," he shifts closer to her and hands back the book.

"Let's see," she taps her forehead with the cover trying to think of something that Courfeyrac can relate to. "I'm retching, and if you looked at me you would think I was dry heaving, but I'm getting rid of backed up magic. And the trapped magic is trying to escape from everywhere, but it's bad and it's slow and it makes my entire body bad and slow."

"Trapped magic," Courfeyrac repeats.

"Energy that I tried to put into the spell, but it didn't work."

"So you're actually a witch then? These aren't just incantations that just-" he waves his hand and the air. Eponine bops him on the head with the spellbook.

"Yes I'm a witch! What do you think we've been doing these last two weeks!"

Courfeyrac laughs, "I don't know, at the beginning you told me you couldn't do certain things! I thought that meant you didn't have magic the way they have magic in the movies."

"What I _meant_ was that I can't destroy things. At least not yet. I don't know how. I can only create."

Courfeyrac stands up abruptly. "Woah hold the phone, bud. So you can't destroy the feelings I have for this girl?"

"I'm trying to. But it's making me sick. Again, my magic doesn't work that way. Some witches can do it. The one who wrote this spellbook can," she tosses the book at him, "But I wasn't born with that. I don't know if it's even something I can exercise like a muscle and gain, or if it's something I'll never have."

"Can't you ask someone?"

"Who? Who would I ask?"

"I don't know? Your mom?"

Eponine looks at him with hooded eyes because that is the dumbest thing she's ever had suggested to her. "Do you want that to be your third question?"

"Ok not your mom then, she doesn't have magic, right?" Eponine nods. "And that probably means that magic isn't something that runs in families. And you don't know any other witches."

"Right and right." Eponine lays back and sucks on the burn on her hand.

"Ok so my third question is what the hell are we going to do if it turns out that you can't perform destructive magic."

Eponine rolls to her side and looks at him deviously, "I could always make her fall for you."

Courfeyrac swallows. "I don't think that's possible."

"Relationships fall apart all the time. Once she realizes she's madly in love with you she'll dump her boyfriend."

"She's not dating anyone."

"Then why is it so impossible? She's not dead is she?"

"No, it's just complicated," he says smiling sadly.

"We could still try."

"You just want more of my mother's baked goods."

"True," Eponine goes back to sucking on her hand. "But I'm also a pretty powerful witch," she says around it.

"Then why didn't you ever make Marius fall for you?" Eponine shoots him a dagger filled look. "It's obvious you're in love with him. This is my third question. Why didn't you ever put a spell on Marius?"

"Because I figured it would happen naturally and when it didn't, I knew he would never be as happy with me as he would be with Cosette. So I let it be."

"Not that I think you should break Marius and Cosette up, but I think you could make anyone very happy."

"Whatever you say Courf. What's your fourth question? My parents are going to be home soon and they aren't going to be happy if I have a boy over."

"What's with the mirror?" He goes over to her closet and picks up the biggest shard. "Why are you the only one allowed to look in it?"

"It's a scrying mirror. I superglued some broken glass together and coated it with silver nitrate. It can only be looked into when you're trying to tell the future. If you use it for anything else it's just a regular mirror."

"Ok, fifth and final question- am I useful in any of this? Can I scry? Is me burning myself really helping the spell? Or is it all you and I'm just here to provide hair and vervain?"

"Of course I need you." As soon as the words leave her tongue she knows she means it in more than one way. Without Courfeyrac she'd be truly alone. Marius is often absent from lunch and never comes over after school anymore, but Courfeyrac distracts her from that hurt in a weird way. He doesn't have to come home with her everyday to help her with the spells, but she's been finding excuses to have him join in. It isn't just for the daily brownies either. His company is nice too. "I tell you what. If you get me the supplies to replace the mirror, we can try scrying together. Maybe we'll even see if the spell I want to try will work. But I need the stuff by Saturday and you'll have to come here at midnight."

Courfeyrac is nearly jumping he is so excited. "What do I need to bring?"

"A glass pane and swimming trunks."

He stops bouncing, "What do I need my swimmers for?"

"It's a surprise," she winks


End file.
